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How many days Mumbai, madam?

Five. Five days of horns and engines and black snot and Old Monk rum.

I didn’t hate it, but I sure came close. Mumbai is the biggest city I’ve been in – ever – and I sort of overlooked the fact that it might hit hard after four weeks of clean, organised Europe and five years of clean, organised New Zealand.

It began at 1am when I got off the plane. An hour waiting in immigration, half an hour running between some twenty luggage belts to find my pack, and ninety minutes locating my driver, who, understandably, had gone home. Or hadn’t bothered at all.

Day two involved six rickshaws (150 rupees), one train (10 rupees), one taxi (50 rupees) and countless miles on foot under the weight of my pack/s to the hotel I’d idly chosen from a generic hostel booking website, only to find it fully booked. Having already spent an hour in Vodafone working through the technicalities of buying a sim card (copies of passport, passport photo and numerous forms required) I was ready to take whatever was close by. Not, however, the dorm room in which a fat American dude lay stretched out on a bed, his stinking sandals propped ingeniously against the fan).

But I did find a hotel, and I did rest, and I did spend many many happy hours wandering Mumbai’s alternatingly cleanswept and filthy streets, sampling every fried/chopped/tossed/skewered/juiced item I saw.